Medical records can reside in many different places. As a patient sees different doctors and is treated for different conditions, individual records relating to the patient are created in each individual location. Therefore a medical record could exist at a general practitioner where the patient goes for annual physicals. At another time a medical record could be created for the patient at an immediate care facility where emergency room services are rendered. In a similar fashion a medical record for the same patient could be created at a particular specialist's office who treats the patient for a particular condition. All of these medical records may be critical to the treatment of the patient in any particular circumstance. If the total medical record for individual patient is not available, certain diagnoses may be overlooked or erroneously made.
Several systems have addressed the issue of how to create universal medical records. In general these systems create medical records by the creation of a file in some central storage area. Thereafter the central storage area may be accessed by individual practitioners by accessing the central storage of the medical record. Such systems use a “root registration” system wherein medical records and identities are registered centrally. Such systems generally are not fully automated leading to the potential for errors. Further only “registered” records awe available to remote users. Thus if a patient's medical record is not centrally registered, it is simply not available to the practitioner.
Another disadvantage of the central registration process is that, at the present time, no single format is universal. Thus many different medical organizations have different formats which cannot be accessed among different medical institutions. Even if such access is granted, format translation programs must be used which could cause additional errors in translation.
One example of a system which attempts to obtain a master index of patient identification information is the telemed system in use at Los Alamos labs. That system maintains a master index of patient IDs thus tracking patient ID as a master reference. The master ID is then used to determine where to find data related to a particular patient. Telemed system deals with topological information normally characterizing patient records. Further, the system relies upon “middleware” to resolve differences between database systems that possess a particular patient's record. Thus a translation mechanism is necessary. Further, the telemed system still requires a master patient index as a form of central registration.
In contrast to the systems noted above, the present invention does not rely on a root registration or a central registration of client information. Rather, the present invention establishes an identity for a patient at the time of service, based on the identity of a given device. This identity is established at the location of the device and not at any central location. This identity is designated, however, in a universal fashion such that, for patient's whose identity is established by the system, information relating to that particular patient can be looked up in a convenient manner. Further, the present invention comprises the data transfer protocol to allow for global addressing and retrieval of information from sites remote from the location at which the patient is present. In this matter, all information concerning a particular patient maybe retrieved by the location treating the patient.